


dismantle. repair.

by Colms



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 22:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colms/pseuds/Colms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All has fallen silent, and she is exhausted. It is time to let go.</p><p>Major spoilers for ME3, some very fleeting Thane/Shepard. This is a very short work of fem!Shep introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dismantle. repair.

All was silent.

How long had it been since she had heard silence like this? Three years? More? Had it been her entire life?

There had been moments of quiet, drifting through open space, past stars and quasars and hollow, hallowed planets, or moments shared with her crew where they were content in mutual stillness, but it was never truly silent. There was a humming in the back of her mind, or it was all drowned out by the rush of blood in her veins, the thrum of her pulse.

Now… nothing.

She imagined she could feel a soft sea breeze caressing her cheek, familiar fingers brushing her chapped, bloody lips.

Shepard was so tired. It had been such a long road. She was fraying at the seams and almost unraveled. A sound ghosted past her, a laugh. Memory. A woman, a warrior. Someone unafraid and betrayed. A quavering lyric to a cheerful song. A fragmented panel of armor, worn by an unexpected friend.

She was tired. She was old—there were scars on her skeleton and oceans crashing in her eye sockets. It was time to sleep, to retire the cold, monochrome nightmares, and melt away.

“It is not time,” a voice said to her, too kind, too warm, summer kisses from lips now cold. She wanted to dissolve, slowly sift into dust and ashes, her fires quenched from forest blaze to smouldering embers to nothing at all. She would drift, shifting aimless through eras and empires, and condense eternity into an embrace that would explode outward; she would splay out and ascend into energy, electromagnetic waves. She could be the light igniting the future, a future she strove and bled and died to guarantee.

It was over. She was done. So, she ceased to be. “You are not finished yet. There is one battle left to be won. Fight, siha.”

Why should she? She was weightless, pieced apart in the ether, dissociated and decomposed to the gleam of memory.

Images. Sensations. A hand on her shoulder, a gripping at her fingers, a sweet curve on sweeter lips. There were names. But what were they? She grasped at them, and her fingers twitched.

There were those who still waited on her. The ones who had left could wait a little longer.

Somebody stoked the embers, and she was spitting sparks. Waves of sharp, electric pain rode through her from skin to bone. The liquid thud of her heart roared over the crackle of flames.

 _Inhale_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ever so much for reading! Cheers!


End file.
